Is Airbnb quietly testing its own loyalty program?

Some hosts are now seeing an offer:

Provide a 20% discount, and Airbnb will boost your visibility and promote your listing to “top rated guests.”

But here’s what makes this different.

“Top rated guests” aren’t defined by how much they spend — they’re defined by behavior. Guests with 4.8+ ratings and multiple completed stays.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why this looks like pay-to-play ranking

• How it differs from Booking.com’s Genius or Expedia’s OneKey

• Why Airbnb’s two-way review system gives it unique behavioral data

• Whether this is a short-term experiment — or the beginning of real loyalty infrastructure

• What this means for hosts funding the discount

If you manage short-term rentals, this could reshape how visibility, guest targeting, and pricing strategy work in 2026.

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In this episode, we break down the 10 biggest takeaways from Airbnb's Q4 2025 earnings call and what they really mean for professional short-term rental managers.

From the likely end of the 3% split fee model… to rising cancellation rates under “Book Now, Pay Later”…to 500,000+ low-quality listings being removed…to Guest Favorites now driving nearly half of all bookings…

Airbnb is clearly optimizing for one thing: reducing guest hesitation and increasing platform-wide conversions.

But what does that mean at the property level?
Are hosts absorbing more uncertainty?
And how should managers adapt in 2026?

We also unpack Airbnb’s global growth trends, hotel expansion, event-driven supply spikes, and the company’s long-term AI strategy.

If you manage short-term rentals, this episode will help you understand where the platform is heading — and how to stay ahead of it.

⭐ Follow the podcast for more breakdowns like this

Many property managers don’t fail — they stall.
And for a lot of STR operators, that stall happens around 100–200 units.

In this episode, we go inside GuestReady’s latest acquisition in Spain, its 12th to date, to unpack why that bottleneck exists — and how M&A is increasingly being used as a growth engine, not an exit.

🎙️ Lorenzo Ritella, Country Manager for Spain at GuestReady, joins RSU to break down:

• Why so many PMs hit a ceiling at ~200 units

• What GuestReady actually looks for when acquiring a company (hint: not tech)

• Why multi-unit buildings are becoming the future of STR operations

• How regulation is quietly reshaping acquisition strategy in Spain

• Why selling isn’t the end — but often the start of the next growth phase

If you’re a property manager thinking about scaling, partnerships, or long-term survival in a regulated market, this episode is for you.

👍 Like, follow & share if this helped you think differently about growth

In this episode, we break down how Airbnb actually rewards quality listings — and why many professional operators lose bookings even in strong markets.

Thibault Masson dives into PriceLabs’ new Listing Optimizer, explaining how data + AI can uncover hidden issues in titles, photos, amenities, descriptions, and review sentiment — the stuff Airbnb’s algorithm really cares about.

If you manage multiple listings and dropping prices isn’t fixing performance, this episode will change how you think about visibility, trust, and conversion.

🎧 Listen now📬 Subscribe to the Vacation Rental Scale-Up podcast for weekly STR insights

#airbnb #pricelabs #rsubypricelabs #airbnbguide #propertymanagement #propertymanagementcompany #propertymanagers #shorttermrentals #vacationrentals #vacationrentalmanagement #thibaultmasson #listingoptimizer #viral #podcast

Register for fee workshop: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1317691874899/WN_T9XsB0s0TUSk2tQA4c50ww

If your Airbnb bookings are slowing down, your first instinct is probably to drop prices.

But what if pricing isn’t the real problem at all? 👀

Airbnb has been clear: listing quality now directly impacts visibility, trust, and conversion.Yet most teams still treat pricing and listing quality as two separate problems.

In this free live workshop on 27 Jan · 5pm CET / 11am EST,

Thibault Masson (Founder, Rental Scale-Up & Head of Product Marketing at PriceLabs) breaks down the hidden listing quality issues that quietly cost Airbnb managers bookings, even in strong markets.

This is a hands-on session with live Airbnb listing audits, not theory.

You’ll learn:

✨ Why listings lose visibility even when demand is there

📉 Why cutting prices often changes nothing

🧠 What “listing quality” actually means to Airbnb today

📸 How titles, photos, amenities, descriptions, and reviews impact trust

📊 What data from thousands of listings reveals about quality vs revenue

💰 How to fix revenue leaks without racing to the bottom on price

👉 Register for the free live workshop: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1317691874899/WN_T9XsB0s0TUSk2tQA4c50ww

🔍 Submit your Airbnb listing for a live audit during the session:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdtrCnVCI0sHL5w26W2_Hapwt-S40sshJb3bG9kH2Hpt4OfsQ/viewform?usp=header

If you manage multiple listings and performance is getting harder to diagnose, this one’s for you.

#airbnb #airbnblife #airbnbookings #shorttermrentals #propertymanagement #propertymanagementcompany #vacationrentalmanagement #vacationrentals #rsubypricelabs #thibaultmasson #pricelabs #ListingOptimizer #listingquality #airbnbproperty

Is the "click-through" era of travel over? For twenty years, platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com have been the indispensable gatekeepers of the industry. But with the launch of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), Google is attempting to collapse the entire booking journey into the AI layer.

What You’ll Learn

In this episode, Uvika Wahi breaks down why the traditional "search and compare" model is facing an existential threat and what professional managers must do to survive the shift to Agentic Commerce:

• The Inspiration Gap: Why travelers are spending over 13 minutes in AI interfaces and how UCP finally allows them to "act" instead of just "browse".

• The Live Pipe: A look at how UCP connects AI agents directly to your backend for real-time pricing and availability, bypassing the need for a traditional website or OTA middleman.

• The Luxury Exception: Why 76% of high-end travelers still demand a human advisor, and how UCP acts as an efficiency tool rather than a replacement for hospitality.

• 2026 Strategy: The rise of "Machine-Readable Trust" and the new storefront requirements for Google Merchant Center.

Never miss a shift in the STR industry. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get professional news and insights for today and tomorrow delivered straight to your inbox.

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Vacation Rental Trends 2026 didn’t start in 2026.In this episode, Uvika Wahi of RSU by PriceLabs breaks down the most important vacation rental and trends shaping 2026, using guidance from what happened in 2025.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why luxury positioning is accelerating, and why more brands are chasing it

• How Asia’s growing travel demand is reshaping global travel flows

• Why sports and live events are becoming the backbone of travel calendars

• What’s driving shorter booking windows and growing last-minute demand

• How regulation is forcing professionalisation and consolidation

• Why generic listings are losing visibility

• How AI-driven personalisation is changing discovery and conversion

• And why pricing has become psychological, not just mathematical

Built for professional vacation rental managers who want clarity, not noise.

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music📰 Read more at rentalscaleup.com📬 Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter

Across articles, podcasts, webinars, and industry conversations throughout the year, the same topics kept resurfacing. And when that happens, it usually means something structural is changing.

In this episode, we step back to connect the dots and break down the big themes that repeated all year — and why they matter as we head into 2026.

We cover:
• How regulation is structurally reshaping supply in key markets• Why fees aren’t disappearing — just changing how guests decide• What Airbnb’s moves into hotels, services, and experiences really signal• Why platform rules are tightening (and why that’s not random)• What the Vacasa story tells us about where the competitive landscape is heading

This isn’t about predictions or panic.
It’s about understanding direction, so fewer things catch you off guard next year.

If you’re planning for 2026, this episode helps you see the industry as a system, not as isolated news events.

Subscribe the podcast, if you found it helpful!